The Idiot(s)
The Idiot(s) is a wonderfully bizarre and visually stunning portrayal of the relationship between Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky and his wife Anna. Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, it follows the couple during their self-imposed exile in Germany as Fyodor struggles with gambling, alcoholism, and a debilitating case of writer’s block. It’s an unconventional love story, and one that manages to be both ridiculous and surprisingly touching.
Johnny Flynn and Aimee Lou Wood are both brilliant as Fyodor and Anna, with a chemistry that makes even the most absurd moments of their relationship believable. Flynn is particularly entertaining as the self-indulgent, often insufferable literary genius, while Wood is wonderful as the increasingly exasperated woman tasked with keeping their lives together. Christian Friedel is also excellent as Fyodor’s literary rival, Ivan Turgenev, bringing a wonderfully theatrical quality to an already rather eccentric film.
Visually, the film is completely stunning. The beautiful compositions, rich colours and carefully considered framing make it a pleasure to watch, even when very little is really happening. The scene where the whole cast is playing hide and seek particularly sticks out to me; we are watching them do literally nothing, but it is in such a vivid, beautiful, pruned garden that it remains engaging. There is something almost theatrical about the whole production, which works particularly well alongside the exaggerated performances and occasionally surreal humour.
Admittedly, the plot does seem to lose itself somewhere in the middle, but I really didn’t care. The general consensus seems to be that the film becomes boring or is ultimately rather pointless, and while I can understand where this comes from, I felt that this was probably the point. We’re watching one of the greatest literary minds in history spend most of his time gambling away his money, procrastinating, and generally making a fool of himself. I think there is something quite fitting about a film concerning the creation of a masterpiece like The Idiot being more preoccupied with the absurdity of its author’s own existence.
It was particularly impressive that a film about Dostoevsky, of all people, managed to avoid being even remotely pretentious. It would have been so easy to turn the subject into some grand meditation on artistic genius, but The Idiot(s) seems far more interested in the ridiculous, often quite pathetic, reality behind it. The film allows Fyodor to behave in some truly awful, selfish ways without ever suggesting that this makes him an inherently bad person – or, worse, some tragic, tortured genius. He can be pathetic, insufferable, and certainly not someone you’d want to be married to. And yet, the love between him and Anna feels completely real. Their relationship is far from perfect, but there is something touching about the way their affection persists through all the chaos. The film doesn’t try to excuse Fyodor’s behaviour, nor does it suggest that love somehow makes everything alright – it allows both things to be true at once.
For all its absurdity, the film also handles its more serious moments with surprising sensitivity. The couple’s experience of losing a child is particularly moving and treated with appropriate restraint. Aimee Lou Wood is especially brilliant here, conveying Anna’s grief without the film feeling the need to overdramatise it. The quieter moments like this provide a welcome contrast to the ridiculousness of much of the surrounding narrative, making the relationship at its centre feel more convincing and fundamentally human.
There is something refreshing about the film’s refusal to romanticise artistic genius. Dostoevsky’s literary achievements are never really in question, but nor are they used to justify his behaviour. If anything, the contrast between his extraordinary intellect and his complete inability to manage his own life is one of the best aspects of the film. The characters didn’t care about behaving in a way befitting their historical significance. They were petty and emotional, frequently ridiculous, and all the more believable for it. It is not a carefully constructed portrait of a great writer, but of two rather ordinary people trying, and often failing, to get through life.
It definitely isn’t a perfect film and I’m not trying to argue that every narrative decision works, but I found it so thoroughly entertaining, beautifully shot, and brilliantly performed that I really didn’t care. Sometimes a film doesn’t need to arrive at some profound conclusion to be worth watching; The Idiot(s) exemplifies this idea. It might wander rather aimlessly at times, but I was more than happy to wander along with it.
